Understanding True Service: Glorifying God Through Grace

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I think this is one of the most important questions a Christian can ask about living the Christian Life in a way that glorifies God and does good to other people. It gets at the utterly crucial issue of a right way of serving God that honors him and blesses people and a wrong way of serving God that dishonors him and doesn't help people. [00:01:44]

If we start serving God as though we could earn wages from him or as though we could meet his needs or as though we could put him in our debt and make him our beneficiary, red biblical lights start flashing very brightly. For example, in John 15:15, Jesus says to his disciples, no longer do I call you servants or slaves, for the servant does not know what his master's doing, but I have called you friends. [00:03:56]

Acts chapter 17 verse 15: God is not served by human hands as though he needed anything, for he himself gives to all men life and breath and everything. So yes, serve him, but not that way, not that way, not as though he needed your service. Or here's another red flashing light, Psalm 50 verse 12. God says if I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine. [00:05:30]

Romans 4:4 can't get much more basic than this. Paul describes how the Christian Life Begins. Are we Justified and put right with God by working for God, earning a wage, or by trusting him to work for us in our utter helplessness? So here's the quote: to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. [00:07:13]

Every effort expended in the service of God is a god-given effort. That may be the most important sentence, so let me say it again: every effort expended in the service of God, the right service of God, is a god-given effort. That's what must absolutely sink into our souls. Otherwise, we will always think of ourselves as bringing to God things that he doesn't have. [00:09:36]

All God-pleasing service is done in the Moment by moment Reliance upon God's service enabling power. Or to say it another way, the only service of God that pleases God is done through the Glad acceptance of his undeserved service toward us and in us. And we see this in second Corinthians 15:10. By the grace of God, I am what I am. [00:10:27]

Yes, we work, yes, we serve, we have a master, we obey, but every baby step we take in obedience to our Master is a gift of Grace from him to us. Therefore, we should never think of our service to God as a way to repay him in gratitude or for his goodness to us because every step we take in that so-called Payback is another gift from him. [00:11:25]

You serve God by calculating all your plans and all your efforts to benefit from all that God promises to be for you. Your life revolves around trying to put yourself under the waterfall of God's greatest blessing, questioning yourself for the greatest benefit God has to give, namely, himself. So I conclude yes, God enlists us into his service. [00:13:36]

God enlists us into his service, which means he calls us to have a part in accomplishing his purposes, not meeting his needs, and he accomplishes his purposes precisely by supplying the grace to our work to do our work because the giver gets the glory, the servant gets the joy, and that's God's purpose for his world, his glory, and the joy of his people in him. [00:14:01]

Every effort expended in the service of God is a god-given effort, and we're not meeting his needs. Thank you, Pastor John, but we do give God things. We give him things like praise, we give him thanks, we give him glory, we give him power. Give power to God, that's Psalm 68:34. Give power to God. [00:14:46]

So how do we give God power? What do we give to God if we meet none of his needs? It's an interesting question to follow this one, and it comes up from a listener named Jeff next time. I'm your host Tony Reinke, we'll pick it up here on Monday. See you then. [00:15:12]

[Music] [00:15:26]

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